Dom Sigebert Buckley & the Westminster link of 1607 between medieval and modern English Benedictines
Downside Review 30 (1931) 49-74As this paper is concerned with the details of a single episode which is not a matter of common knowledge outside our own body, I have been asked by the Editor [in 1931] to add at the beginning a few lines for the guidance of general readers.
With reference to the 'aggregation' of Fathers Robert Sadler and Edward Maihew to the old English Benedictine Congregation by Father Sigebert Buckley, the sole survivor of Abbot Feckenham s community at Westminster, it has been said elsewhere that, 'while the essential fact stands out clear, there is considerable difficulty in reconciling some of the statements as to details.' [1]
The essential fact' is that on the 21st of November 1607 some form of ceremony was gone through before the old man which it was hoped would afterwards be recognized by the Holy See as legal and canonical, and that the purpose of the ceremony was to transmit to the two priests in question all the rights, privileges, etc., pertaining to the monastery of Westminster in particular, and to the old monks of England in generalall which rights and privileges were believed to be vested now in Fr Buckley by the law of survivorship.
In regard to this matter we possess a considerable number of contemporary statements, some of which come from persons present on the occasion, as Fr Buckley himself and Fr Maihew, others from those who were intimately concerned in bringing the event about, and arranging what was to be done, as Dom Anselm Beech and Fr Augustine Baker. It is proposed here to collect these testimonies, adding as we go along such notes as may help to bring out their significance, or any difficulties involved in them. But first it will be well to draw up a bare list of the chief questions which arise out of the statements of the several authorities.
We may now proceed to set out the documentary evidence: not, however, attempting to group the items according to their bearing on the seven questions above, which would be impracticable, but giving in turn the whole of what each authority has to tell us. The answers to the questions, in so far as answers are forthcoming, will be indicated in notes to the passages as they occur (and therefore not in any fixed order), and will be gathered up and arranged at the end. Apart from Fr Baker's evidence, most of the texts to be quoted are in Latin; but as the originals are nearly all accessible in the appendices to the Apostolatus and our Bullarium, they are here turned into English for the convenience of the general reader.
This document {Apostolatus, Script. I) may be called the charter of our continuity with the old English Congregation. On the information which it provided was made to rest the Brief Cum sicut accepimus of Paul V (24th December 1612: Script. VIII of the Apostolatus), by which the validity of Fr Buckley's action was formally recognized. By the terms of this document, therefore, we must stand absolutely if we are to maintain that our present Congregation is a 'continuation' and not an 'erection de novo' of the old English Congregation; for nothing else was ratified by Rome in 1612 but what is here stated to have been done.
The word 'aggregate' or 'aggregation' is not used here by Fr Buckley; but the Brief, after reciting the terms of his Statement, refers to 'the said monks aggregated as aforesaid'. 'Aggregate' occurs also in the ratification of Fr Buckley's act by the Cassinese Chapter on 5 May 1608 (Script. II), in the vivae vocis oraculum of 18 September 1609 (Script. III), in Fr Buckley's commission to Fr Preston of 15 Dec. 1609 (Script. IV), and in practically every other document referring to the transaction.
But in any case it is said in the Statement above that the two received by Buckley were already monks professed of the Cassinese Congregation'. It is clear therefore that Fr Buckley did not profess anyone on that occasion. It appears also from the second paragraph that he had not in any sense received or admitted any others between 21 Nov. 1607 and 8 Nov. 1609, but that any who had been admitted to the English Congregation between those dates had been so admitted by one or other of the four Cassinese Fathers, Preston, Smith, Beech and Taylor.[2]
This and the following pieces from Fr Maihew's Trophaea are printed in the Appendix to our Bullarium, pp. 145-48. The passages A and B are said to come from Tom. I pp. 141-44 of the Trophaea. It will be observed that in the first paragraph above Fr Maihew implies that the English Cassinese monks only came to hear of the existence of Fr Buckley after their arrival in England. But this, as we shall see from the evidence of Frs Beech and Baker, appears to be a mistake. In the second paragraph we notice that Fr Maihew, in agreement with Fr Buckley's Statement, says that the priests aggregated in 1607 'had already made their profession in the Cassinese Congregation.' From both paragraphs combined we get the impression that the professions took place some little time at least before the date of the aggregation: which is to be contrasted with what is said in passages C and D. below.
In view of all the other known evidence, including Fr Maihew's own, this is a most puzzling statement. Who was the favoured individual actually 'professed' by Fr Buckley ? In the Addenda et Corrigenda at the end of our Bullarium it is said that the person in question was probably Fr Augustine Baker; and Father Taunton (The English Black Monks, II p. 80, note) says that this 'does not admit of any possibility of a doubt'. But we shall see from Fr Baker's own statements that he made his profession in the Italian Congregation. (see 4E. and 4F). Moreover, no one moderately acquainted with the life of Fr Baker would find it easy to believe that he ever received anyone, much less 'many', to habit or profession in the English Congregation. Weldon (Collections, I p.19, marginal note), referring to this very passage of Fr Maihew s Trophaea, says: 'Fa. Maihew was aggregated by his profession, which he there made expressly for the said house of Westminster' (see No. 5 post).
In other words, he understood that Fr Maihew was here referring to himself; and I cannot but think that Weldon is right. Of whom else but Fr Maihew could it be said that, previously to the Union of 1619, he had received 'many others' to profession in the English Congregation ? And indeed at the end of passage D below he comes very near saying of himself what he appears to say here of someone else.
If the person intended was not Fr Maihew himself, then the occasion of this 'profession' must have been later than the original aggregation, for he and Sadler were the only persons then received by Fr Buckley. But it is clear from Buckley's own Statement that up to 8 November 1609 he had not personally received anyone else. Moreover, as late as 27 December 1609 there appear to have been only three professed monks of the English Congregation, viz. Sadler, Maihew and Baker (Apostolatus, Script. V), and this was within two months of Fr Buckley's death. I feel confident that he never received anyone, in any sense, to the English Congregation except Sadler and Maihew; and consequently that he never received the profession of anyone at all.
How then are we to account for Fr Maihew's statement above ? If the story is not purely imaginative, the only explanation of it that I can suggest is that Fr Maihew, either through some misapprehension of what was to be done, or upon some impulse of the moment, may have taken his vows (in the presence of Fr Buckley, as we shall see under D below) with a private intention for Westminster and the old English Congregation. This can have been no part of the programme for the aggregation drawn up by Fr Baker; but there is a sentence in Fr Prichard's Life of the latter which seems to imply that in some points his directions were departed from:
If conceivably Fr Maihew took his vows for Westminster, as suggested, this might well be one of those things 'that seemed to have bin done ... less legally'. But what His Holiness' Bulls supplied in this case would be the validity of his profession for the Cassinese Congregation, certainly not for the English. Anyone who will read through the Brief of 24 December 1612, in Script. VIII of the Apostolatus or in the Bullarium pp. 152-5. will see that all whose admission to the English Congregation is there ratified (whether they were received by Fr Buckley himself or by the Cassmese Fathers) are repeatedly and insistently stated to have been first professed monks of the Cassinese Congregation of S. Justina of Padua. There appears indeed to have been no question as yet of any professions made directly into the English Congregation.
The person referred to in this passage is Fr Maihew himself. Here again, as in passage A, he tells us that he made his profession into the Cassinese Congregation; but he now adds that the profession took place on the very day of his aggregation to the English Congregation. He will tell us in the next passage that it took place actually in the presence of Fr Buckley. These statements we cannot refuse to accept, though they are not quite what is suggested by passage A.
As in the foregoing passages, so here there is no suggestion that Fr Buckley was in prison at this time, or that the ceremony took place in the Gatehouse. This is the more noteworthy because Fr Maihew shows that he has a keen eye for dramatic effect. As Weldon puts it (Notes p. 60), he 'mightily admires the day of the aggregation' as coinciding with that of the restoration of Westminster under Abbot Feckenham; and he is equally eloquent over the matter of Fr Buckley's blindness. Surely then, if the ceremony had taken place in the very precincts of Westminster, he would not have allowed the fact to pass unnoticed, but would similarly have 'admired' this circum- stance also.
The extent of Fr Buckley's blindness before and after the ceremony of the aggregation is in itself a point of no importance; but it may have some bearing on another question, viz. whether Fr Maihew was not, as a historical witness, inclined to be somewhat enthusiastic and imaginative. We have seen the difficulties connected with his statement under B above. He is responsible also for another tradition which is found to conflict with the very best evidencethe tradition, namely, which makes Dr Gifford the first Prior of Dieulouard. [6]
Now as regards Fr. Buckley's blindness we are presented with an occurrence which borders on the miraculous, and we have a right in such a case to be exacting in the matter of evidence. Is there any ground for suspecting that Fr Maihew may have been mistaken in saying that the old man was not completely blind already before the aggregation ?
The second Douay Diary records that on 18 May 1579 Dr Allen and two others arrived from Paris, 'and with them a certain blind old man who was formerly a monk of Westminster in England.' [7] Was this Fr Buckley ? Dom Cuthbert Almond says 'there can be little doubt' that it was [8]. But if he could be described as blind in 1579, when he was about 62, he would in all likelihood have been stone blind for some considerable time before 1607, when he is said to have been 90. It must be felt as a difficulty also that Fr Buckley should be found on the Continent about the middle of Elizabeth's reign, for tradition has it that he was a constant prisoner during the whole of her reign.
True, an interval of a few years would not be inconsistent with that tradition, but once at liberty and safe abroad, why should a 'blind old man' return to England? What use could he expect to be there ?
But if this monk was not Fr Buckley, then we hear altogether of three blind Benedictines of the old Congregation; for Fr Thomas Woodhope in his Obits tells us that in 1603 Fr Bradshaw reconciled to the Church an old monk of Evesham, Lyttleton by name, and his case has a curious point of resemblance to that of Buckley as told by Maihew: 'This old man being thus reclaimed went home and presently fell blind.'[9] Three blind monks, and two of them from Westminster, certainly seems rather many. But even if there were only two, we are still left with the odd coincidence that both of them were overtaken with sudden blindness after an important moment in their lives. The entry in the Douay Diary presents us with a dry fact; the accounts of Lyttleton and Buckley certainly have a basis of fact, but may owe something to the mellowing years that passed before the stories were told. That is all I feel it safe to say about them.
The date appears to be 1609, for near the beginning it is said that the Benedictine mission has been w existence 'now for seven years'. We may say also with fair certainty that the document was written after 18 September 1009, the date of the first recognition by Rome of the Buckley aggregation. And it was written before Fr Buckley's death, which, as we shall see, occurred on 22 February 1610.
The first paragraph makes it clear that the Cassinese Fathers knew of Fr. Buckley, and had conceived the idea of continuing through him 'the old Benedicts monachism of England', to use Fr Prichard's expression [10] already before their entry into the English mission.
In the second paragraph the words 'and with the rest Father Sebert ... to whom the Cassinese joined some of theirs' strongly suggest that Fr Buckley's liberation by James provided the opportunity for the aggregation, and that he was never in prison again after his release.
The words 'we buried him' however, present a difficulty, since there are strong reasons for believing that D. Anselm was not in England at the time. To mention only one, Fr Baker, in his Treatise of the English Mission (p.278 of the Downside MS copy), says of him: 'Don Anselmo, being one of the two first Italian missioners, after he had bin 4 years in the mission, was sent to Rome, there to negotiate the affairs of the mission for his Congregation, and there remained for a great many years, and never returned to England'. A similar difficulty may seem to attach to the words 'Dom Thomas and I took care of the old man till his happy death' But these words are easier of explanation, for they do not necessarily imply personal attention, but only material assistance. They involve, however, a certain looseness of expression which justifies us in doubting also of the literal exactness of 'we buried him'. We note, finally, that D. Anselm gives a precise date for Fr Buckley's death, 22 February 1610.
This passage, in its last sentence, seems incompatible with any knowledge on Fr Baker's part that Fr Buckley suffered another imprisonment after his release by James.
Fr Baker is quite clear in his mind that the English Cassinese Fathers knew of Fr Buckley before they entered the English mission, and that his existence and the possibilities it offered were points made by them in their appeal to the Pope. This agrees with D. Anselm Beech's evidence: see also the following passage.
This passage follows immediately upon C. For the date of Fr Buckley's death, here placed 'about a year after' the aggregation (therefore about the end of 1608), see already A above, 'about the sixth year of K. James '; also in the earlier part of the Treatise (p. 131, Downside MS) it is said that Fr. Buckley lived 'till about the year 1608'.
That Fr Baker should be wrong in such a point as this is very strange. Yet wrong he must be, though the proof of it only makes the fact more surprising. Not only does he contradict the precise evidence of D. Anselm Beech, but his fixed idea that Fr Buckley died in 1608 is against the evidence of three official documents which, one would think, he could hardly have been ignorant of or have forgotten, for they were in print in the Apostolatus some ten years before he wrote his Treatise of the Mission. The first is Fr Buckley's Statement of 8 November 1609 (Script I), the second is his commission to Fr Preston, of 15 December of the same year (Script IV); and the third is an approval of this commission by the three members of the newly revived English Congregation, which is signed thus, 'Datum 19 Decembris, anno 1609. D. Robertus, Edwardus. Et infra: D. Augustinus 27 Dec' (Script. V). The last signature is, of course, that of Augustine Baker, not of Augustine Smith the Cassinese[11]. Thus Fr Baker is himself a contemporary witness to the fact that Buckley was alive in December 1609.
We may now observe one or two other points arising out of the passage. And first, we note once more that both Sadler and Maihew are said to have been ' professed of the Italian Congregation 'before their aggregation by Buckley. Next, the statement that upon Buckley's death (i.e. about the end of 1608, according to Fr Baker) Sadler and Maihew 'were become, as by succession, the Congregation of the old English Benedictines' should mean that, so far as Fr Baker knew, none but those two had been received into the English Congregation up to that date. And further, the same statement may be regarded as certain evidence that Fr Baker was never received by Buckley, for though he was mistaken as to the date of the old man's death, his own profession or aggregation by Fr Buckley would be an event that he could not have forgotten. We gather, then, that Fr Baker must have been admitted to the English Congregation by one of the Cassinese Fathers, and between the latter end of 1608 and the 27th of December 1609, when he signed the document Script. V in the Apostolatus.
These last two passages are conclusive evidence that Fr Baker was not professed into the Enghsh Congregation. That he made his profession into the Cassinese Congregation is stated also in the Lives of him by Frs Prichard and Cressy. Moreover, these passages seem to support the conclusion drawn above from D, viz. that he was not received, in any sense, to the English Congregation by Fr Buckley. In both, as also in his Rhythms [13], he says that he 'made a transition' into the English Congregation; and I suspect that he uses this expression on purpose to avoid the term 'aggregated' which he appears to reserve to those admitted by Buckley in person. We have seen that Buckley's own Statement implies that he had aggregated none but Sadler and Maihew.
'Don Anselmo' left England probably somewhere in the second half of 1607, and is found in Rome on 30 November of that year. The above interview appears to have taken place while he was still in England, and therefore perhaps only a few months before the ceremony of the aggregation; and Fr Buckley was then at large and living quietly in his own lodgings.
Fr Thomas Sadler is the sole witness for the tradition that the ceremony took place in the Gatehouse. Weldon very naturally remarks that, as Fr Thomas was nephew to Fr (Robert) Vincent Sadler, he ought to have known what he was talking about. But, as we have seen, it is almost certain that Fr Buckley was not a prisoner at the time. If there is anything at all in the story, it may possibly be that the actors in the ceremony found means to take the old man to the Gatehouse perhaps on the pretext of visiting some prisoner there in order to be within the precincts of Westminster for the occasion. But if all that trouble was taken, the matter must have been regarded as of some legal importance, lending additional force to the act of aggregation.
Why then is this point never referred to in the official documents, or by such authorities as Frs Maihew, Beech, and Baker ? On the whole, therefore, I am inclined to believe that the aggregation took place at Fr Buckley's lodging 'in St Johns his in London,' and not in the Gatehouse. The reference at the end to Fr Maihew's Trophaea is clearly to the passage 2 B. already given above. And so Weldon assumes that the person there in question is Fr Maihew himself; and I have no doubt that he is right in this identification.
This reference covers not only our passage about Mr Pitts and the aggregation, but also the account of the beginnings of Dieulouard, with its similar allusions to papers in the Dieulouard archives, which comes just before it in Weldon. So that it is President Gregson and not Weldon who is primarily responsible for the various statements in that account about the gift of Dieulouard to the Benedictines, and the intentions of the donors. Now that we have the principal documents concerned with the gift, the President's story is found to be very misleading; but here we are concerned only with the final remark about Mr Pitts and the aggregation of Frs Sadler and Maihew.
Now, as the Cassinese Fathers had knowledge of Fr Buckley even before they returned to England, and as Dom Anselm Beech had made his personal acquaintance upon his first arrival in 1603, and as the aggregation had been sanctioned in advance by the Cassinese Chapter of 1604 [Apost. Script. II, p. 2), it is difficult to see what part Pitts could have played in 'proposing' the aggregation: especially as the biographers of Fr Baker tell us that it was he who pointed out to the Cassinese the possibility of making use of Fr Buckley, and was responsible for the legal formalities to be observed. Hence, if we had nothing to go upon but President Gregson's statement, we might be tempted to suppose that he had made a mistake in this point.
However, in the present case we have no fault to find with the President, for what he tells us is substantially what Pitts himself had written. The particular 'Act' to which he refers has not been found in the Dieulouard archives now at Nancy, but there is a document among the Silos Papers which is probably to be identified with it, or rather with part of it.[14] Let us see, then, what Arthur Pitts had to say about his part in bringing about the aggregation, observing only in advance that his Act, or statement, was made some considerable time (perhaps about seven years) after the event.
This statement of Arthur Pitts is item no. 3 in a collection of pieces which form the documentary Summarium intended to accompany an Information concerning the House of Dieulouard in Lorraine [ibid. 165]. The first of the pieces in the Summary is an extract from a Chapter held at Dieulouard by Fr Maihew and some others. It refers to the Anselmian Union as 'confirmed this year, 1614' and goes on to say that Fr Constans Matthews has been given till the 14th of November to choose between re-profession into the English Congregation and expulsion from the house. The chapter therefore was held about October- November 1614; and hence the Summary (as a collection) and the Information will date either from the end of 1614 or from 1615. I think it must have been in connexion with this chapter at Dieulouard that Mr Pitts made his statement, for in the Information we read:
And now, what are we to think of Mr. Pitts's assertion that it was he who brought about the aggregation of Frs Sadler and Maihew to the English Congregation ? Some of the difficulties attending it have already been indicated. Those were difficulties in reconciling Pitts's evidence with that of other authorities; but there remains a still more serious one which must now be noticed.
The second part of the above statement implies that already before the aggregation of 21 November 1607 the English Cassinese monks had, or were intended by Pitts to have, equal rights in Dieulouard with the English monks of Spain, to whom (as he says in the earlier part) he had first given possession of the place. But nearly two years after the aggregation we find him energetically denying that the Cassinese have, or ever had, any rights there at all. On 12 October 1609 he wrote a letter to Fr Augustine Bradshaw[16] telling him that Dom Anselm Beech in Rome had lately been using his influence to procure from the Primate of Nancy 'a testimony' that the gift of Dolowarte was 'generall and indifferent to both congregations of Spaine and Italic' This Primate was not Prince Charles of Lorraine, the grantor of Dieulouard to the Benedictines, but his successor. Naturally then he turned for information to the chief mover in this affair, Arthur Pitts.
Here Mr Pitts not only defines what were his original intentions, but indicates very clearly that he still adheres to them. That is to say, as late as October 1609 he recognizes no rights of the Cassinese in Dieulouard. He shows moreover that at that date he had no anticipation of a union to be made between the English monks of Spain and Italy; indeed he states his opinion that any such union is out of the question, though he implies that it would be a necessary condition if the Cassinese were to have a share in Dieulouard. In view of all this Mr Pitts's later statement is very puzzling, and I can only offer the following remarks for the reader's consideration.
First, it is certain, as we have already seen, that Pitts was not the originator of the aggregation scheme. Next, it seems certain also that the actual negotiations with Fr Buckley were in progress before D. Anselm Beech left England in 1607: see Fr Baker's evidence under 3 G above [17].
But on the other hand Mr Pitts's assertion that on first hearing of Fr Buckley's existence he had sent letters 'through D. Anselm into England' to Fr Preston, for the purpose of bringing about the aggregation, most naturally implies that D. Anselm was no longer in England, but, if not already in Rome where he arrived about the end of November, at least on his way thither [18].
Thirdly, if it be true that, as Mr Pitts says in his later statement, his object in securing the aggregation was connected with a plan in his mind for giving joint possession of Dieulouard to the monks of all three Congregations, Spanish, Cassinese and English, then his intentions in regard to this house must have undergone several changes, thus:
It cannot be said that this is all plain sailing. And the difficulty resides in Mr Pitts's final statement, made at a time when he found himself committed to a state of things which formed no part of his original intentions. I do not question that he had written letters to Fr Preston connected in some way or other with the aggregation of Frs Sadler and Maihew and with plans for the revival of the old English Congregation; but I find it very difficult to believe that he wrote those letters before the aggregation had taken place, or indeed before the last quarter of 1609. If when he wrote to Fr Bradshaw on 12 October 1609 he had already in his mind the plans concerning Dieulouard which he describes in his later statement, it would seem impossible any longer to regard that letter as an honest and straightforward document. But I believe it is perfectly straightforward. Any other view of it would mean the elimination of Mr Pitts as a credible witness altogether.
I can only suggest, therefore, that when he made his statement before the chapter of Dieulouard in 1614 (if that was the occasion on which he made it), he had forgotten the date of his letters to Fr Preston; and that possibly he had forgotten the exact tenor of them also. This last point would depend on whether, at the time when he wrote to Fr Preston, he was aware that the aggregation had already taken place. His statement implies, of course, that he was not aware of it: and there we must leave the matter.
The chief documents relating to the 'Buckley Affair ' have now been brought forward and discussed. It remains only to summarise the results, which may best be done in the form of answers, or provisional answers, to the seven questions proposed at the beginning of the paper.
It is disappointing that no name resembling Buckley appears in the list of Westminster monks under Mary which is printed by E.H.Pearce in the Appendix to his Monks of Westminster (Cambridge, 1916); and as the religious names of the community are not given in that list (which calls them simply 'Mr' So-and-So), we get no clue from that source. Possibly the name Buckley (or Bulkley, or Bulkeley) was an alias adopted after his liberation from prison. As for the form of the name, in our old MS copy of Cressy's Life of Fr Baker it is spelt Bulkeley wherever it occurs. And in our copy of Fr Baker's Treatise of the English Mission, made by Fr Wilfrid Reeve 'from the Authors Originall', the form Bulkley is found eight times, as against Buckley some ten times. One may suspect that the first was that used everywhere by Fr Baker. Yet Buckley, which presently became traditional, occurs already in the Apostolatus (Tract. I, p. 247, and Tract. 2, p. 17).
Something of the story of Fr Buckley was known to Lewis Owen the spy, writing in 1626, and his version of it may serve to add a lighter touch at the end of this over stiff and stodgy paper:
In the latter end of the Raigne of Queene Elizibeth, there was but one English Monk living in the world (as the Papists themsleves doe report) who was called by the name of Mauro... And therefore, fearing that the Iesuites (if that Father Mauro should happen to dye) should for want of any lawfull successor to the old English Monks of the Order of Saint Bennet, who were (as the Papists falsely report) those that first planted the Christian faith in England, enter upon the Abbey Lands, as they had done in other Countries; they sollicited many of the English Students that then lived in any of the English Colledges, or Seminaries in those forraine parts, to become Religious Monks, of the Order of Saint Bennet, perswading them that they were sure, that all England (after the death of the Queene) would turne Catholikes, and that the Abbey Lands throughout all England would be all theirs, if that they would in time become Monks of the holy Order of Saint Bennet:' (Running Register, p. 84).
The name 'Mauro' may well be a mere invention of Owen's. But as he occasionally surprises us with scraps of very intimate information, it may be worth while to mention, if only as a matter of coincidence, that the notary before whom Fr Buckley made his statement in Script. I of the Apostolatus was Dom Maurus Tayler (Taylor), a Cassinese monk, and that 'coram me D. Mauro' occurs there some little way before the mention of D. Sigebert Buckley himself.